Sugar Cookies
Sugar Cookie Making:
A Four Stage process:
The recipe we used is in the Martha Stewart Baking Book - read my review here. The sugar cookie recipe is wonderful. A similar recipe is on the Martha Stewart website.
1. Make dough
- Break- Refrigerate
(can be overnight – or frozen)
2. Roll & Cut
Take a Break- Chill and bake and cool
(can be overnight)
3. Make Icing – Arrange Decorations.
4. Ice and Decorate Cookies
Deliver Happy Day Presents!
Why Make Cookies?
Because it’s fun to mix and roll and cut and decorate. It’s like cooking and art and science all-in-one. I usually make a huge batch of cookie dough and divide into four then I freeze three and use one fourth. When we have a slow day out comes the cookie dough from the freezer and by the time we’ve set up the decorating zone it’s almost ready to roll and cut it.
I find that the interest level of a younger child (2-5) is about enough to accomplish either making the dough or rolling it and cutting it or decorating in one sitting. You can often roll and cut and then take a break and then decorate later in the day. Doing all three in one day can be almost too much. Having pre-made dough (this is what makes those ready to bake companies rich) gives the roll and decorate a spotlight. The chilling and the baking time give the natural break needed to get the focus back to cooking.
The rolling and cutting procedure can take a while as all the little pieces are re-rolled – Trent likes to just use a bench scraper to cut dough into pieces and sometimes that’s most of the “cutting” for him. You can then chill and bake the cookies and cool them, decorating them that day or the even the next. When they are done we often take them around to neighbors and friends as a sunny day surprise.
Icing and decorating really seem to me more of a craft project than cooking. At Thanksgiving and Christmas my mother-in-law pre-cuts and bakes the cookies piercing them before baking so that a string or ribbon can be threaded through them. Then she sets up a newspaper covered table with all the decorating stuff and when the kids (and adults) arrive then can dive right in. We would make a fine mess but have a fantastic time. Icing colors are easily piped on using cones of rolled parchment paper or even food-safe plastic bags with a corner snipped off.
And Gingerbread houses too...
To me, Gingerbread houses are almost an extension of Sugar Cookies. Once rolled, cut baked and assembled they are a huge and wonderful decorating project. With a young chef you may even want to decorate a house over two days – taking on one part (like the house itself) and then the garden the next day. Trent once took a cooking class where each child was given a cake and a bowl of icing, once they covered the cake they were given an array of decorating items.
More on Gingerbread Houses
